September Post of the Month Winner: ralper

Congratulations to our first-ever Post of the Month winner, ralper! He shared a great anecdote about his son that shows the S2000 can be more than just a car. In fact, he titled his thread exactly that. Check out his winning post, And you thought it was only a car:

Many of you have met my youngest son Adam. Adam was 8 years old when we got our S2000 and from the very first day he and I shared our interest in it. He was the first person to be a passenger in the car, and the only other person who helped me work on it. Adam is a student at Virginia Tech majoring in mechanical engineering. We all agree that it was the S2000 and that helped him develop his love for mechanical engineering. Adam has been attending S2000 meets with me since the beginning.

Adam is currently involved in a 6 month co-op with a major construction equipment manufacturer in Pennsylvania. He is an intern working with a team of mechanical engineers troubleshooting problems as the equipment comes off of the assembly line. In January, he resumes his studies as an upper junior at Virginia Tech.

I mention all of this because Adam is living in Pennsylvania, in an apartment provided by the company he’s working with. He’s only 3 ½ hours away instead of the 8 hours away when he’s at Tech. As you can imagine, both Liz and I miss him terribly. Anyway, he called me earlier in the week and in the course of the call mentioned that he wanted to change his oil. Seeing that as an excuse to get him to come home for the weekend, I told him that if he comes home to do it, I’d help him, and even pay for the oil. Even if he wants Mobil1. Not realizing that it was a plot to get him to come home for a visit he agreed.

Liz and I were very excited at the idea of his coming home. We haven’t seen him for a few months. He left Pennsylvania after work and by about 8:30 arrived home. We stayed up late, talking and catching up on everything since the last time we’d seen him.

We got up early Saturday morning, put the car on jack stands, took the wheel off so that he could get to the oil filter and proceeded to change the oil. Adam did most of the work, I handed him the tools as he needed them, and helped whenever he needed help.

Once we finished his Si we pulled the S out of the garage and changed its oil too. As we were putting the tools away Adam looked at me and said, “You know its funny. When I was a little boy, you used to do the work and I used to help you. Now I’m doing the work and you’re helping me.”

All at once I realized that my little boy was now an adult and in the 12 years that I’ve owned my S2000 my son has grown up. I’ve known for a very long time that the S has become a part of the family, I just didn’t realize how important a part of the family it is. Some of what Adam has become is because we’ve owned the S, and some of the closeness between us is because of it.